Ghost in the Shell Thesis

There a slew of narratives that could be pursued and harangued in the anime The Ghost in the Shell, but I will attempt to focus on simply one of them. Specifically the strange strange relationship between the major and Bato with it's possibly one sided romantic tension. How are the rules of attraction altered when when the physical appearance of gender is purely a construct? Bato remains confused and conflicted through the entirety of the movie while unable to find a socially suitable code of etiquette to abide by when in the presence of Major Kursinugwa.

The strange set of circumstances presented by Major Kursinugwa presents trackless ground for male protagonist Bato. A former male comrade in arms has become a feminine android assassin, there's no handbook I know of to handle that interaction properly. The fact that Bato can even be perceived as being attracted to the Major raises some interesting queries about human relationships. There is no possible way the two could procreate, as an android Kursinugwa has no ovaries, uterus, or even any genitalia whatsoever. She is some kind of facsimile of womanhood, a crude silhouette of femininity. The viewer has to wonder what drives Bato's attraction to the major when there is no biological imperative to drive it. Perhaps it is simply the Major's form that attracts Bato, which must put him ill at ease when he recalls that mind inside that body had previously been in a male.

With these conflicts in mind the movie addresses the theme of gender recognition. It displays the blurring of gender identity in the presence of godlike technology while showing the very conflicted human reaction to the transformation presented. The theme stays true throughout the movie, and against the background of a near futuristic society the ideas have some possible probability. One of many possible conclusi